A Man called Joe
by Liam Needsom
Summary: Lee is thrown for a loop when Amanda's past comes racing back into town, just when he was starting to let himself think they might have a future. Fifth in the "A Good Man is Hard to Find" series.
1. The Running Man

Amanda hadn't been sure what to expect from Darryl Prescott down at the EAO, but she hadn't trusted him from the very first minute and she certainly resented the way he'd treated her as clueless. He had called her down to a meeting at the EAO making it sound like it was a simple paperwork question he needed help with but she'd walked into that meeting on her guard, far more informed than he'd thought. She'd seen right away that he thought she was just a ditzy suburban ex-wife whom he could pump for information, and she'd let him keep thinking that because it suited her purposes. For heaven's sake, he'd been surprised that she even knew where Joe was posted, as if she wouldn't have stayed in contact with the father of her children. In actual fact, the first thing she'd done after Joe had hung up was flip on CNN to see if there was news from Estoccia on the air and had watched, appalled, as they'd reported on the Prime Minister's assassination. If Prescott hadn't been waiting, she would have gone straight to the Agency and pulled the daily briefing reports – Cathy was used to her coming down to review all the telexes out of that part of the world, and she'd been aware of the drought and political protests from the difficulties the country had been facing despite Prime Minister Ashad's best efforts. If nothing else, starting work at the Agency had made it a lot easier for her to keep tabs on the kind of work Joe was doing. He'd never been good at letting her know what he was working on, even when they'd been married, and because his letters home had been mostly directed to the boys, they'd been light on real information – unless you cared about giant lizards, of course.

Prescott seemed to assume she wouldn't even know about Ashad's death, talking to her in that condescending tone about an 'incident' in Estoccia as if it was a mishap at a garden party and not a cold-blooded killing. And acting as if he couldn't tell her anything even as he tried to pump her for information; it had made her blood boil so she'd done what Joe had asked and played dumb about knowing where he was. She didn't know what was going on yet, but she'd told the truth when she'd said to Prescott that this was all a bit confusing since Joe was just a lawyer. She hissed with annoyance at the memory as she guided the station wagon through traffic.

She hadn't even consciously headed for the Agency, she'd just known that whatever was going on, she needed to be near Lee. However it turned out that Joe was involved in this, she knew Lee would help her straighten it out.

But when she'd walked into the Georgetown lobby, a woman on a mission, she'd been stopped dead in her tracks by Mrs. Marston who hadn't even given her a chance to say a word before saying, "Mrs. King, Mr. Melrose wants to see you. He told me to tell you that you are to go straight to his office as soon as you arrived."

She stifled the groan of frustration and her eyes must have flicked up the stairs, because Mrs. Marston immediately added, "Mr. Stetson is out of the building." She knew she was probably blushing a bit at having her thoughts so easily read, but when she looked back at the receptionist, there was a sympathetic smile on her face, and she was holding out Amanda's badge without having asked for the password.

"Thank you, Mrs. Marston," she said, taking it with suddenly shaky hands, and heading for the closet elevator with only one last wistful glance at the stairs.

Billy had been kind, his sympathy to her showing even through his obvious determination to get to the bottom of the story. She'd had to pass Francine's desk to get to his office and obviously the Thanksgiving ceasefire from the previous week was over because the blonde hadn't been able to resist throwing out a quip about Amanda having her very own Richard Kimble in the family.

"Well, you know what, Francine? He turned out to have been innocent all along too," she'd shot back, releasing all her annoyance with Darryl Prescott loose on the unsuspecting blonde. "And I have no intention of having to tell my sons that their father is going to jail for something I know he didn't do! So if you can't be helpful right now, do me a favor and shut the hell up!"

Francine had actually looked a little shocked that Amanda had turned out to have claws, but right now she just couldn't deal with Francine's automatic reflex to make jokes as if there weren't real people involved, real people who didn't live their lives surrounded by international intrigue, real people - _her_ _children_ \- who could be hurt by this. Francine's smirk had faltered and she stared wide-eyed, with no clever riposte when Amanda gave her one last glare and continued toward Billy's door.

For some reason, that was the moment it finally hit her how serious this was and she paused to work up her nerve to rap on the door. It should have been a relief that he greeted her so kindly, but instead his sympathy seemed to drain her of the invigorating head of steam she'd built up. When he'd begun to list all the security agencies that were involved, she'd had to lean on the window for support as it became clearer that whatever was going on was an international incident on a scale she could barely imagine. FBI, CIA, Security Task Force, the Agency – how was it possible that all those organizations were after her Joe? And then he'd added "We'll do everything we can to get to the truth" and at least some of the weight lifted with the relief of knowing that Billy at least was willing to remain impartial for now. So Billy was on her side even if Francine might not be but…

"Does Lee know?" she couldn't help asking, trying unsuccessfully to hide the catch in her voice. She knew he wasn't in the building – it was entirely possible that he wasn't even allowed near this because of his association with her. She fought to hide her rising panic at the idea that he might not be able to help her. She'd become adept at boxing with shadows in the last two years, but to do it without her best friend?

And then Billy had said, "I already have him on special assignment, very high level" with a knowing look and an encouraging smile, and she'd known he'd seen right through her. She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment with relief before thanking him and turning to bolt from the office.

"Amanda, why don't you wait for him upstairs in his office?" Billy had called her back before she could leave. "I can imagine it could get uncomfortable for you down here in the bullpen. People might say things they shouldn't." His eyes had traveled past her to rest on Francine who sat just beyond his door and the heads that were swiveling all over the bullpen to stare at Amanda. "And with you in such a tricky position on this one, being so personally involved, it would probably be best if you weren't in earshot of anyone discussing the case, except with Lee, of course. Having one of our own involved in this means we have to be extra squeaky clean, I'm afraid."

He'd sounded apologetic that he was having to tell her this, but he couldn't know what a balm to her heart it had been to hear him say 'one of our own'. She'd half-expected to get another remark from Francine as she went by, given that she'd had time to reload, so to speak, but to her surprise, Francine had simply waved her over and pointed to the phone.

"Lee's on his way back from the airport. He said to tell you he should be back in an hour, tops." Her cool tone had told Amanda that she was still feeling insulted by Amanda lashing out a few minutes before, or possibly ashamed and unwilling to admit it.

"Thank you, Francine," she'd replied with real gratitude, and had then had to bite back a laugh when the blonde had responded.

"Well, under the circumstances, I'm willing to let it slide this once, but don't think I'm going to start being a telephone service for you and Lee. I have better things to do with my time." Francine had huffed and turned back to her monitor, clearly putting an end to the conversation.

Amanda had headed out of the bullpen toward the elevator, ridiculously buoyed by Francine's snarkiness. After all, it couldn't be too bad if Francine was still being mean.

It was more than an hour before Lee showed up, though and by the time he got there she'd had time to go get copies of all the telexes out of Estoccia – thank goodness Cathy hadn't known yet that she probably shouldn't have them – and seen what they were up against. A cold-blooded killing, Joe's fingerprints on a gun at the scene, several eyewitnesses who placed him there and running away from the murder scene and worst of all, a United Nations ally, albeit a small one, baying for blood right up to the top levels of the U.S. government. It seemed overwhelming and to top it off, she had no idea who was going to walk in the door; would she get sympathetic Lee or the old curt what-have-you-done-this-time Lee? As the minutes ticked by, her nervousness had increased and she was so busying playing out all the worst-case scenario possibilities in her head that, in the end, she had missed even hearing the door open.

"Hi."

Her head had jerked up. "Hi." She stared at him, trying to decide what that look on his face meant.

"I called your house as soon as I heard. Your mother said you were on your way here. That was hours ago - I've been worried."

In that instant, that blinding instant of relief, _that_ was when she'd known it was going to be alright. And then she'd given in to all the pent-up emotion and had begun to fall apart.

* * *

He'd known it the minute he walked into the Q Bureau with an armload of files and found her perched on the sofa, surrounded by scattered telexes. Saw it, knew it, and felt his heart break a little from the look on her face. He knew that look – he hadn't seen it in almost a year, had, in fact, spent most of the last few months trying to make sure that look was gone forever. It had taken him most of the past year to find out what it meant and he knew he'd barely begun to scratch the surface of making her feel safe enough that it wouldn't come back. But there it was – the unnatural paleness, marked with the ebb and flow of botchy flushes up and down her neck, the slight tremble, noticeable especially when she lifted her hand to chew wretchedly at her cuticles and worst of all, the shuttered expression that told him she was barely holding it together and that she really, really didn't want to talk to him about it. That she was going to fight talking to him about it. She was poised for flight; he was going to have to tread carefully to keep her from running.

 _But she's here_ , he told himself. _There might be something going on that is frightening her to death, but she came_ here _. She came to_ me _. We can get through anything as long as she's still doing that._

"Hi." _Jesus, Stetson, brilliant opening._

"Hi." She spoke so softly he could barely hear her. She was watching him warily, her arms curled around her chest as if she was preparing to deflect a body blow.

"I called your house as soon as I heard. Your mother said you were on your way here. That was hours ago - I've been worried."

"I couldn't tell her where I was going." Her voice cracked a little and she gripped her hands together. "As far as she knew it was just a meeting about paperwork. I couldn't tell her what had happened." Her voice started to rise. "Everything in my life these days is something I can't tell my mother!"

He dropped the file folders on the nearest chair and crossed the room in two long strides, crouching beside her and taking her hands between his. "Amanda? Amanda, it will be okay, I promise."

"Lee!" She couldn't hide the exasperation in her voice. "You can't promise me that! You can't promise me anything! I know Billy gave you this case, but you can't treat this case or me any differently than you do normally."

He knew he hadn't managed to mask his reaction to how accurately she'd summed it up when she stood abruptly and began pacing around the room. He straightened back up and watched her. Any other time he would have laughed at how much she looked like he must look at moments like these, but this situation was far too serious, and he could tell she knew it. He had to be completely honest with her if she was going to trust him.

"You're right," he sighed. "You can't be my partner on this, not when you're a source of information as well." He wished he hadn't said anything when he saw the stricken expression on her face, but as he watched, he could almost see the iron enter her soul. Her face hardened just a bit and she stopped pacing, glaring at him.

"You're right. I'm a source of information and here is the first thing you need to know." She was jabbing a finger in his direction now. "Whatever you think is going on is NOT going on. I know what that Mr. Prescott made it sound like, but there is no way it's true!"

"Amanda, you don't understand – there's fingerprints and witnesses and he _ran._ It couldn't look worse – you have to face facts."

"I don't care what it looks like – it's not true!" Amanda was almost sobbing with rage now. "Lee, I know it looks bad, but I know it's not true!" She had begun pacing again, trying to get her emotions under control, while he watched silently, wretched that he couldn't say anything to make her feel better.

She stopped, finally, in front of the window that looked out over the street in front of IFF, and he waited patiently while she calmed herself. This righteous rage was actually more in his wheelhouse than the silent panic she'd been in when he'd walked in. Anger was something he could work with – he just hoped he could keep it directed away from him.

"Do you remember Margaret Brock?" she asked suddenly, turning to look at him.

"Mitch Larner's secretary? Yeah, of course I do." Amanda said nothing, just stared at him, head on a tilt, eyebrow raised, obviously waiting.

His heart eased a bit – whatever she thought was going on, she still trusted him to do the right thing.

"Yeah, okay, it could be a set-up," he sighed heavily, capitulating readily. He picked up a pad of paper and a pen and held them out to her, gesturing toward the desk with his head. "I'll start going through everything in the files we have and you start writing down everything you can think of that will help us find your husband."

Her face had lit up even before he'd begun to speak, the second she'd seen that he was going to give in.

 _I really have to get better at not letting her see that._

"Ex-husband," she said almost automatically as she took the pen and paper. "So you'll help him?" she asked eagerly.

He held up a hand, and answered sternly, "I will assume innocent until proven guilty, Amanda, that is all. If everything keeps pointing the way it's going now, I won't have any choice but to hand him over to the Estoccian authorities. You know that, right?"

Her shoulders slumped slightly at his rebuke, but then she'd taken a deep breath and squared them again. "I know. But it's not going to come to that. He could never have assassinated anybody!"

"Well, first things first, let's start working on those lists. We know he's in the country, but for now he could be anywhere – once he got to New York, he vanished into thin air."

He had started to turn to pick up the files when he'd heard that telltale noise, that humming sound she made in the back of her throat when she was about to confess something. He closed his eyes and sighed before turning back toward her, groaning when he saw the expression on her face that told him he was right.

 _At least reading each other works both ways_ he though irreverently, but what he said out loud was, "Oh God, Amanda, please tell me he isn't hiding in your attic or something!"

"Oh no, Lee! I'd have told you that!" Her eyes had gone wide – he could tell that was the truth, but he knew she was going to drop the other shoe any second.

"But?"

"He's in D.C. – he called me at the house this morning." Once again, he must have been doing a very poor job of hiding his thoughts, because she rushed on immediately. "Now he didn't say where he was, he wouldn't tell me, he just said I shouldn't worry and that I'd be getting calls and I shouldn't believe them."

"Does he know about us? I mean, IFF? Does he know what you really do here? Is that why he called you?"

"Oh no! He has no idea! I haven't even seen him in almost three years, Lee! And even if I wanted to tell him, I couldn't do that that in a phone call or a letter, could I? 'Dear Joe, Just writing to tell you that Phillip got MVP, Jamie got an A on his science project and oh, by the way, I'm a spy now. Not that we use the word 'spy'." She mumbled those last few words, adding them almost as if she couldn't help herself. "He just called me to warn me, that's all and to tell me not to believe any of it. As if I would! Joe couldn't hurt a fly!"

"His fingerprints are on the gun, Amanda," he couldn't help saying.

"I know that!" He assumed Billy had told her that, but his reminder seemed to take the wind out of her sails for a moment before she rallied. "Well, I'm sure I don't know how that happened, but there will be an explanation."

He studied her for a moment, relieved that the fear she'd been showing when he came in was gone. Now she had an enemy to fight. _And it isn't me_. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, let's figure out what the explanation is then, okay Partner?" He gestured to the desk. "You get down everything you can think of, while I start with this stuff." He gathered up the file folders and walked into the vault to spread them out.

With a jerky nod, she moved to the desk and sat down, staring at the blank page for a moment. When she spoke again, it was so quietly he barely heard her. "Thank you, Lee."

* * *

"Amanda, I think there's a typo in this file. It says Joe was born in 1940."

Her shoulders drooped as she recognized the tone in his voice. It was starting – he was going to pry and ask all of the personal questions that she'd hoped to avoid. She put on her best bright voice and answered without looking up.

"Nope, that's right." _One, two, three, four…_

"Seriously?" Lee didn't look up from the file he was staring at, but she knew the gears were turning.

"Yes, seriously." She was tempted to leave it at the almost monosyllabic answer, but she knew she might as well bite the bullet and head him off now. Lee Stetson had many admirable qualities but a terrier-like ability to concentrate on the one thing you didn't want him to was one of them, and she could tell from his tone of voice that this was going to be one of those things.

"I thought you met when you were both at college?"

She sighed and gave up even pretending that she was concentrating on her own lists. "We did. He was in grad school and I was working on the school paper for credit in my journalism course. I interviewed him about a civil rights group he was working with. He was doing some legal work for them – research and stuff – and we just… hit it off."

"But ten years' age difference? I mean that's-"

"Almost eleven actually," she interrupted. "Look Lee, I'm sure it's all in his file. He graduated with a political science degree from Yale in 1963, and then he joined the army in 1965, because he wanted to do some good in the world and Vietnam was just heating up. The Berlin airdrop was still recent history and he was going to fight the good fight against the Commies, you know? " Lee was nodding along, still not looking at her – it was obviously all in the file in front of him but she plunged on. "But seeing the misery people were living in in Asia got him all fired up to want to do something about it, and then when Bobby Kennedy was killed, he left the army and enrolled in grad school in International Studies at UVA and then went on to study international law at Georgetown. I met him in 1969."

"And?"

"And… what? He was an amazing guy – smart, funny, he was going to save the world, – what wasn't to like? He had money and a fast car and my mother was thrilled I was going to marry a lawyer. And he was over 21, so he could buy the booze for the sorority parties." She left off the part where her mother hadn't realized until they'd met that Joe was as close to her age as he was to Amanda's. That had been an interesting dinner, but, needless to say, Joe had charmed her mother completely. Even her father had been won over despite himself.

"Yeah, well, 30 was definitely over 21." She looked up at the disapproving tone and couldn't help smiling a little. It never failed to amaze her that Lee seemed to forget that she'd had a life before they'd met, an actual life with boyfriends, a marriage, and children who had not just appeared under a cabbage leaf, no matter what he thought.

"Anyway, what does that have to do with trying to figure out where he is? Knowing his age isn't going to help us find him any faster," she said reprovingly.

"No, I suppose not," he'd agreed grumpily and gone back to reading his files.

That hadn't been the end of it, of course, because he was definitely still in terrier mode, and the next thing she knew, he'd been deep into their divorce statements and questioning why they'd divorced in the first place, a topic she'd never wanted to talk to him about in a million years and which certainly had nothing to do with finding Joe, no matter what he said. She could tell he was just snooping; it almost seemed like he was jealous, which was ridiculous, but it did appear that he'd only just figured out how little she'd ever told him about her life before that day in the train station.

But even for Lee, her divorce was off limits. Everyone had something in their life they were ashamed of and that failure was hers. She'd listened to too many other women complaining about their exes, denouncing them for infidelity or too little alimony or the custody arrangements and she'd vowed never to cast Joe in a bad light. She knew the other women thought she was stand-offish for never dishing the dirt on her ex the way they did so gleefully, but the one thing she owed Joe was loyalty and she simply wouldn't do it. It could have been done so easily, on the bad days when she needed encouragement, to fish for sympathy by acting the martyr, but she never had, not even to her mother – especially to her mother. Not just for the boys' sake, because inevitably, that would have gotten back to them, but also because she knew she had no one to blame but herself. She'd gone into marriage wilfully blind, ignoring every warning sign, and when it had ended, she'd been left with nothing but her boys, a broken heart and a bottomless well of self-doubt.

She couldn't share that with Lee. The one thing he had ever said he really admired about her was her ability to read people – how could she tell him her marriage had been doomed from the start because she had misread the one person in the world she should have known the best?

Thank goodness for Shamba arriving when he did. He was an odd duck, but at least he'd interrupted an uncomfortable conversation.

* * *

She'd been nervous but firm back in the Q Bureau, dodging his questions about her marriage. He had to admit, his feelings were a bit hurt that she wouldn't discuss it with him. She'd certainly done her best to pry into every aspect of his past in the past two years, he thought grumpily, it was unbelievable that when the tables were turned, she was clamming up like a pro. But boy, was she ever; he shows the slightest interest in her past and she's shaking it off and making it clear she had no intention of telling him anything, pretending to be sidetracked by Joe's ES12 and when that didn't work, just outright telling him to butt out.

 _Stubborn_ , he thought. _Oh yeah, you're stubborn alright, Amanda King_.

And what was that business with Mrs. MacDonald back at the boarding house when she'd practically jumped on the woman to keep her from saying anything about the old days?

"Why did you keep his last name?" he asked without thinking. They were walking from the boarding house to Dooley's and the question was out before he even knew he'd been thinking it.

"What?" she'd turned to him, startled.

"Why didn't you go back to West after the divorce? Why are you still Mrs. King?"

"Oh!" She thought about that for a minute – he got the impression that she was debating with herself if this was another move in his part to dig into her personal life. "Well, I'd been Amanda King for ten years at that point and it meant I still had the same last name as the boys. It was hard on Phillip when the divorce happened because he remembered Joe better, you know? And I think it would have upset him if I'd suddenly stopped being Amanda King because it would have seemed like I was rejecting part of him and Jamie. And it wasn't like I hated the name or anything – Joe and I are still friends so there wasn't any real reason to, I guess."

"What if you marry again? Will you change it then?"

Amanda gave a snort of laughter. "Marry again? Marry one of these vast hordes of guys lining up to marry the single mother-of-two who can't say what she really does for a living, you mean? I don't think that's going to a problem for me."

"Well, you never know," he answered lightly. "Duffy's had a crush on you for a while."

"Duffy's got a crush on my chocolate chip cookies," she reprimanded him. "The closest thing I've had to a date in months was Alan Chamberlain trying to have a fling with a Midwest dental hygienist."

"Our opera date was nice," he reminded her, trying not to feel hurt.

"Oh, of course it was," she said instantly, laying a hand on his arm soothingly. "I love our evenings out – I meant date-dates."

He bit back the retort he wanted to make, that he thought their evenings together were date-dates, but this was hardly the time or place – when she was obviously frazzled and inattentive and in the middle of hunting down her international fugitive of an ex-husband. Again, he found himself asking a question without thinking it through.

"Why did the landlady ask if you and Joe had ever gotten married? You said you got married the year before he started law school."

"Ah, well," said Amanda with a guilty expression. "She didn't know we were married – no one here did. It was kind of a secret."

" _Kind of_ a secret? Didn't you have Phillip by then? That must have been _kind o_ f a hint to people, surely?"

"Well, our family and friends knew, obviously," she answered. She peeked sideways at him, as if trying to gauge his reaction. "But Georgetown gave preferential treatment to applicants who were single – they thought families would distract them from their studies – so he just didn't mention it on his application…"

"And no one ratted him out for having a wife and kid?" asked Lee incredulously.

"Like I said, no one at Georgetown knew for the first year," she answered. "Joe lived at the boarding house and Phillip and I lived in Richmond with Mother and Daddy and we got together when we could. After that first year, once he was established in the law program and they couldn't do anything about it, I moved up here and Joe found the apartment on 17th. It was a bit cramped, but at least we were together and then by the time Jamie came along, he was graduating and starting work at the EPA and well, you know the rest."

 _No, I don't – you won't tell me the rest,_ he thought resentfully. But now he really wanted to meet Joe King – what kind of man could have married Amanda and not have wanted to shout it from the rooftops?

* * *

 _Okay isn't good enough for you._

Right now though, he'd settle for simply knowing she was okay, but all he could hear were the gunshots and all his wondering about her past was gone as he tried to slow his racing heart and figure out where she was. Another shot rang out behind him and he turned, tearing open the back door of the library and pounding up the stairs. A hundred scenarios were racing through his head. What if Joe had killed her? Maybe he went off the deep end and killed the Prime Minister and now he'd lured Amanda out and…

He slid quietly into the library, gestured to the terrified woman on the floor to get out and began pacing into the room, hardly breathing as he tried to get a clear shot at the gunman, a man he could at least clearly see wasn't Joe King. But stopping to help the librarian cost him the element of surprise and whoever it had been was gone.

"Amanda?"

"Here!"

 _Oh thank God._

* * *

 _Harmless._ God help him, that was the first thing he thought when there was finally a moment where they felt safe enough to size each other up. He'd seen the ID photo in the file, so he knew what Joe looked like, but the government-issued ID picture hadn't done justice to what a nice ordinary guy he seemed. Lee was used to most people being shorter than him, but for some reason, he'd thought Amanda's type was more quarterback and less debate team captain. _More like me,_ said the annoying little voice in his head. There was something about this guy that bothered him though if he could just place it – a gnawing unfamiliar feeling in his gut that made him uncomfortable.

Despite that, his second thought was that Amanda was absolutely right: Joe King was innocent. Even if it hadn't been obvious that someone was trying to kill him, the guy just exuded the same kind of innate goodness that Amanda did. Lee revised his first impression slightly – Joe was no debate team nerd; now that it was calmer he could see the control Joe was flexing, and the sheer physicality of his presence. He was probably often underestimated, but Lee was pretty sure he wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of a fight with him. He could tell Joe was sizing him up just as thoroughly and he didn't think it was coincidence that Joe had positioned himself between him and Amanda – it's exactly what he would have done. Joe might be innocent of the Prime Minister's murder, but he'd been living in dangerous places long enough that he didn't automatically trust someone, especially when that someone was armed and was part of a search team looking to arrest him. No, Joe's instincts were smart – and in any other circumstances, Lee would have liked him right away.

He squared his shoulders, put on his best agent mask and began to question him. He knew what his gut was telling him, but he also knew the powers that be would want evidence and a logical reason not to ship Joe back to Estoccia on the next military transport. It was safest if Joe didn't figure out the connection between him and Amanda so he continued to play it as if he wasn't completely convinced, glancing at Amanda apologetically and relieved that she seemed to read him instantly.

He started to walk away, unable to help glancing back, sorry that he had when Joe had turned to look at Amanda and taken her hand and smiled. That's when he saw it, the something that had been gnawing at him, and his heart broke a little for the second time that day.

 _A running man only runs two ways: away from something or toward something._

 _Oh crap_. Joe King had run straight to Amanda. He was looking at her like he was a shipwrecked sailor and she was … _safe harbor_. His throat closed up and suddenly he couldn't get out of there fast enough.


	2. Spelling Out the Hurting Words

She couldn't deny it – it had been a weird week, and not just because she swore she still couldn't feel the tips of her fingers. It wasn't the chill of the freezer that was getting to her; it was the odd chill in her relationship with Lee.

She sighed, staring into her morning coffee as she wrapped her hands around the mug, trying to shake the phantom cold that still lingered. When Lee had shown up to ask her to help with the Marvin case, she'd been more than a little relieved because it had seemed like he'd been avoiding her lately.

She pondered that for a minute before deciding no, he hadn't been avoiding her exactly- he just hadn't been Lee; to be exact, he hadn't been _her_ Lee. She sighed again – he hadn't been her Lee since Thanksgiving. She couldn't figure it out – she knew he'd been honestly happy when she'd dropped by to surprise him with the pumpkin pie. He'd been more open with her that night than he had in a long time – well, as open as he could be with Francine there. His smile had been welcoming, he'd insisted she stay, he'd let her tease him about how he'd probably driven his uncle crazy asking for an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle and then laughed when she'd explained the reference. Why she'd ever thought Lee would have seen a sappy Christmas movie after being around his Grumpy the Elf routine for the last two years was a mystery to her and she'd said as much and he hadn't seemed to take offense, but maybe…?

Maybe that was it – maybe in the cold light of day, he'd regretted opening up quite so much about his past with Andy. Maybe he was pulling back in some sort of kneejerk way, afraid he'd said too much or let her see his ongoing grief too clearly. He'd said himself that it was the first time in a long time he'd tried to be 'normal' again... She couldn't help sighing again as she worried.

And it wasn't like he wasn't being nice to her – he'd been perfectly friendly, but what the heck was that whole brother/sister routine at the Marvin's convention? She thought they'd fallen into a pretty easy pattern of playing married covers and then all of a sudden, when it made the least sense, he'd booked them two rooms and set them up as siblings. It made no sense to her – he'd even let it slip how difficult it had been to _get_ two rooms at all.

She missed the easy way they'd fallen into holding hands as they walked or the way he usually slung an arm around her waist; it had made her feel that maybe he'd begun to feel the same way she did. Okay, probably not the same way exactly because she wasn't going to kid herself, she was more than halfway to being in love with him, but they'd been getting to be such _good_ friends, and even if she wasn't his type, at least they were close enough for him to really start to let the warm, caring Lee out more often.

And then that warm caring Lee had... vanished. Not entirely – she'd seen signs of it when they were helping Joe but that whole week they'd had to act like virtual strangers – definitely no hand holding during that whole debacle. And she'd _needed_ it then, she'd needed something to center herself on and that first day, when she'd looked up in the Q Bureau and found him in front of her with that concerned expression, it had been like the storm had calmed in that instant. And then…

 _Oh God, it's all my fault._

She dropped her face in her hands as sudden clarity hit her like a thunderbolt.

 _I shut him out. I prodded around in his life for two years trying to get him to open up and the minute it got personal, I shut him out. I looked him in the eye and told him it was none of his business because I was too much of a coward to tell him what an idiot I'd been_.

"He must have been so hurt," she said out loud.

"Who must have been?" asked Dotty from the kitchen table.

"Oh!" said Amanda thinking quickly. "Uh, Marvin Metz – I was just reading this article in the paper about how his son tried to ruin his business."

"Sharper than a serpent's tooth than to have a thankless child," quoted Dotty. "I must say, Amanda, I'm very grateful that you have never been a difficult child. You might drive me crazy with your schemes and projects and the crazy hours you keep at the film company, but at least I've never had to worry about you being involved with anything criminal!"

 _Well, at least not on the wrong side of it,_ thought Amanda, cheered somehow by her mother's faith in her but still cursing herself inwardly for what she'd done.

 _Maybe he thinks I don't trust him. Maybe he thinks if it's not a two way street, he doesn't want to be friends that way. Maybe…_

Ugh, there were too many maybes in her life these days. With Joe back in D.C. for the foreseeable future, she was suddenly looking at trying to figure out how to schedule in his time with the boys on top of everything else that was going on at this time of year, and that was just added stress. And Joe was hinting around that he liked the new her – and her mother was encouraging him – and even though she'd said she wanted to go forward, not back, he still seemed to be thinking that they could go forward together.

It wasn't really his fault, she admitted to herself. Their decision to divorce had been mutual but they'd never stopped caring about each other, he loved the boys and, to his eyes, she'd been single since the divorce and there was nothing to stand in the way of them trying again. It was nice that he could see the change in her and admire it, but she worried that he was misinterpreting her concern for him as something else, something deeper. Something like what she felt for Lee.

"Oh for goodness sake!" she threw her hands up, speaking out loud again, and catching her mother's enquiring eye. "The price of gas has gone up again, 15 cents a gallon overnight! Can you believe it?" she said wildly, hoping her mother never read this section of the paper she had open in front of her because no such story existed.

"15 cents? Honestly, maybe I should rethink this whole learning to drive thing," answered Dotty. "That wagon of yours is like trying to drive a boat and it must take so much gas! It would be much simpler if you traded it in for something smaller. " Amanda couldn't miss the hopeful note in her mother's voice at the end of all that.

"Oh Mother," she replied. "You know I need the space for all the boys' stuff and I feel much safer with you surrounded by so much metal. You just have to get…"

"Please don't tell me I should just get used to driving something so big – think of all the times you've brought that poor car home with bits broken off it! I don't even know how you keep insurance on it the way it's always getting banged up!" grumbled Dotty. "And don't even get me started on trying to parallel park it – I completely understand why the captain of the Titanic hit that iceberg if it steered anything like your car!"

She was barely paying attention now to the familiar litany of complaints from her mother.

 _I should have gone back to his room that night, Francine or not._

She'd thought about it. He'd almost been like the old Lee with that flirty line about walking her back to her room; it was like he missed the camaraderie as well, maybe even regretted not getting a room to share but when Francine had appeared, he'd grabbed the opportunity to change his mind about coming in for coffee. She'd gotten as far as opening her door to go back – she could have told Francine she'd left something in there – she'd even half-expected to find him still in the hallway, but when she hadn't, it had been the cold splash of reality that sent her back into her own room.

He's pulling away, she thought sadly. He's going back to his old ways of being Secret Agent Loner Man.

 _ **You've heard of the word 'loner'? … I happen to like being alone**_

She knew better now than she had then. He _hated_ being alone, but it was like a reflex for him to curl protectively in and pretend he didn't need to depend on anyone. She felt like she was grasping at air; Lee was still there, friendly enough, but shielded. Happy to have her along as a partner until that bomb was left in his room and then he'd wanted her gone. He'd said it was because it was too dangerous, but they'd been in worse situations. No, she decided, it was all part and parcel of his conviction that he could do everything by himself.

All of a sudden she could hear Francine's voice clearly, echoing that same sentiment.

 _ **I rely on one person, and that is**_ _ **me**_ _ **. People are not always there when you need them. You cannot count on them, because people**_ _ **leave**_ _ **.**_

Maybe that's what Lee thought – that with Joe back in the picture, she'd want to leave the Agency?

"Amanda, what on earth are you thinking about that's making you so sad?" said Dotty suddenly, breaking off from whatever story she'd been telling.

"I was just thinking about a woman I work with," said Amanda truthfully. "She was having a hard time yesterday and I just felt so bad for her. She had a really important project - " S _urviving certain death_ she added silently – "but when I said we should work as a team, she said she can't count on other people."

"Oh well, that's just terrible," said Dotty sympathetically. "I mean I always hated group projects in school, but to refuse to depend on anyone? She must be so lonely."

Amanda tilted her head and considered that radical concept. Francine Desmond lonely? It seemed improbable – Francine knew everyone who was anyone in Washington, she was invited to the best parties – just raiding a portion of her dress allowance alone had been enough to give Amanda a raise – but now that she thought about it, Francine never talked about having friends. Obviously she and Lee were friends but honestly, they were each as bad as the other when it came to trust.

 _ **Don't you expect Lee to come charging in here on some kind of a white horse, because he won't!**_

But he _had_. He'd trusted other people to stop Carla, but he hadn't depended on anyone else to rescue his friends but himself. Would she ever understand these people?

"Maybe she just needs to know not everyone is untrustworthy." Amanda realized her mother was still talking. "Does your friend have somewhere to go for Christmas? Maybe she'd like to join us – it's going to be so much fun this year with Joe home." She flinched slightly at the hopeful look in her mother's eye.

"No, she's got family, Mother, and besides, Joe will probably be spending most of Christmas with his parents, not here," she said in a tone that she hoped would dampen Dotty's enthusiasm. If nothing else, the idea of Joe finding a woman he'd met in an Interrogation room being introduced to the family as a co-worker simply didn't bear thinking about. "But you're right about her needing a friend I think. Maybe I just need to make more of an effort." She hopped off her kitchen stool and reached for her purse. "I'm going to leave early for work, Mother. I need to stop somewhere on the way." She was pretty certain the DeVaronna shop in Georgetown would be the perfect place to find a peace offering.

As she pulled on her winter coat, her mother looked at her with concern. "You're bundling up like you're expecting the North Pole out there, Amanda!"

Amanda glanced down, realizing for the first time that she'd put on far more layers than normal in an attempt to fight the lingering cold from yesterday. "I'm just feeling a bit chilled Mother. Maybe I'm coming down with something."

* * *

She wasn't surprised that Lee had known immediately that Francine's chocolates were from her. She hadn't told him about the conversation in the freezer – seal of the confessional and all that – but he'd probably noticed that she and Francine had been holding hands when he found them. He'd done what he could to warm them before ushering them out to the Corvette and settling them in there with the heat blasting while he went to call for backup and to seal the crime scene and if he'd noticed that they'd dozed off leaning toward each other over the console instead of leaning on the doors, he hadn't said a word. He'd been in enough bad situations to know facing death makes for odd friendships.

But something had happened, something about nearly losing both of them, she thought, that had brought him back to almost the Lee of the last few months. As they'd walked toward the elevator, his hand had drifted to its customary spot in the small of her back and his voice had dropped to that velvet tone he used when he was completely relaxed and hoping to talk her into something, in this case, the perfect cure.

"It's gonna take some time… and dinner… and a very special bottle of wine."

She hadn't hesitated; she'd gone straight to a phone to call her mother to let her know she was going to be out that night.

"Oh! Are you doing something to help with that friend of the office you were telling me about?"

"Sort of, Mother. Don't wait up." She smiled to herself. If her mother had known it was Lee she was spending the evening with, those hints to reconcile with Joe would have come to a complete stop.

The wine had been special – it was so good that she suspected he'd pulled something out of his special collection for the occasion, but when she'd asked, he'd just shrugged and smiled.

"Wine doesn't do you any good in the bottle. It should be enjoyed the way it was intended – with an excellent meal and very good friends – and tonight, I have both."

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the sincerity in his voice that had emboldened her. It really didn't matter – she knew she had to come clean if they were going to get back on their old footing and unexpectedly, it was Lee who had given her the perfect opening.

"So how are the boys? They're enjoying having their dad back in town fulltime, I bet."

He didn't sound jealous exactly, just a bit envious of the boys getting to have a relationship with their father.

"Yeah, they're pretty happy," she answered softly. "Phillip more than Jamie because he remembers Joe being around more, you know? Jamie's being a little more careful – I think he doesn't want to get attached in case Joe goes back to Africa."

"Is he going to?" Lee sounded surprised that he'd even consider it.

"Well, cleaning up the mess at the EAO will keep him here for a few years, I expect, but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he considered it." She caught Lee's inquiring look. "It's like I said the other week – he feels he has something to offer and it's really what motivates him. He's an honestly good guy, you know that now. It's part of why I fell in love with him, but it made it hard to be married to him – he had big plans to save the world, but no idea how to save a marriage."

Lee nodded thoughtfully. "I can see what attracted you to him. He reminds me of Andy."

Her eyebrows shot up almost into her hairline and she pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. "Should I be concerned?"

His expression of horror was instant and comical. "God, Amanda! Not like that!"

"Well, don't say it like that! Joe's cute!"

Lee started to stammer out an incoherent response, not certain how best to react but finally relaxed and started to chuckle when she burst out laughing. "Amanda! I meant he reminds me of Andy in the way he sees the big picture - Andy wanted to save the world too. It's hard to live with someone who's turned up to 11 all the time."

She took a deep breath, knowing it was time for her to let some of the guilt go, to finally let her failed marriage go.

"Lee, you know the other week when you were asking about what went wrong? I was wrong to shut you out that way. You were just trying to help and I wasn't being completely honest - "

He put out his hand and closed it over hers where it lay on the dinner table. "Amanda, stop. You don't owe me any explanations. You were right –it really didn't have any bearing on the case and I was being nosy."

"No, I do owe you – I owe you a lot. I've been nosy about you too remember, and if we're going to keep being partners, it isn't fair that that is a one-way street. It's just such a habit, you know? To not talk about it, to wrap up my own little parcel of hurt feelings and - "

"Amanda, you're preaching to the choir here!" He was grinning at her now, that warm lazy smile that made her heart flutter. "I'm the poster boy for repression, remember?"

She smiled back at him, knowing he'd let her off the hook if she stopped at that, but it was important to go on, she realized that now. "The thing is, what went wrong with the marriage was _me_. I wasn't committed enough."

She could tell he was having trouble computing that concept. His head tilted to one side and he surveyed her carefully, almost as if he was trying to decide what she meant. "You mean… were you unfaithful?" He asked the question, but she could hear in his voice – thankfully – that he didn't think that was the right answer.

"No, no, nothing like that. Neither of us were unfaithful. It was - " She stared at the ceiling for a moment, trying to think how to phrase it, wondering why it was so difficult to come up with the words when she'd been thinking about nothing else all day.

"You really don't have to tell me," Lee said gently.

"No, I do. It's just hard to describe." She glanced back at him, looked at the way he was looking back at her, clear-eyed and attentive and slightly… worried. She leaned forward, hands flat on the table, and collected her thoughts again. "I was young when I fell in love with Joe – he was older and wiser and he'd traveled the world and he was going to save it. Remember it was 1969 – you remember what it was like. We weren't supposed to trust anyone over 30, but Joe was _different_. He was one of us, fighting the good fight and when he talked about his future, it sounded so amazing and I was going to be right there along with him."

"Partners," said Lee, who looked almost instantly like he wished he hadn't used that particular word, the way it had become a touchpoint for the two of them in the past few years.

"Yeah, partners," she repeated. "But the thing is, I was young and I didn't really listen to what he was saying. I mean, all of us were going to save the world in those days, but it was just midnight talk in coffee shops. But _Joe_ , Joe really was going to do it and I never realized that until it was too late."

"Too late?"

"We had Phillip when he was still in school, you knew that, and then Jamie just before graduation, we settled in Arlington and he went to work for the EPA and I did volunteer work with Mothers for a Safe Environment." She paused when Lee made a choking noise at the mention of that group. "Oh come on, it's a perfectly sensible group, you know that."

"I know, I know. Just another time I underestimated the dangers inherent in housewives." She stopped short of sticking her tongue out at him, but the warm chuckle across the table told her that he knew she'd been thinking about it.

"And then the EAO came knocking and Joe was over the moon. This was his dream job – going to places where he'd be helping people and he was ready to pack us all up and head over there, practically from the first day they asked."

"And you didn't want to go," Lee repeated his comment from the other week.

"They started listing all the shots we'd have to have and how to prevent malaria and dysentery and bites from tsetse flies and I had these two tiny boys and I just couldn't." She was trying to explain it rationally, but even now, it made her tear up thinking about the arguments they'd had on that topic. "I thought I wanted to save the world, but right at that moment, my world was Phillip and Jamie."

"Well, they're pretty great kids. Not many people would have wanted to take their kids into that situation."

She appreciated that he was trying to cheer her up – or maybe just keep her from crying. That thought made her choke with laughter a bit and she suddenly found it easier to go on. "Well, it was so unfair to Joe – he'd always been open about wanting it, but I'd misjudged him. I mean, I hadn't misjudged his character, but I had underestimated his commitment."

"His commitment to you?"

"No, his commitment to his long-term plan. He loved us – he adores the boys – but his love for them is tied up in wanting to leave them a better world. I'm sorry – I'm rambling and I don't think I'm making much sense."

"You're not rambling – it's just a big topic." Lee picked up her hand from the table and stared at it, idly circling his thumb along it the way he did when he was thinking. "But if I'm hearing you correctly, you seem to think the failure of your marriage is all on you."

"Well, I kinda do, I guess. It's why I don't like to talk about it. I failed him and I failed the boys. "

"Well, I kinda think that's crazy," he said calmly. "Amanda, you can't seriously think that! You said yourself, it was only 'okay'."

"Lee, I was the one who backed out, not Joe. He would have stayed married if it had been his choice. It was me that thought he should be free to pursue the life he wanted and asked for the divorce."

"Did you ever stop to think that maybe he should have thought of that before he married you? You said it yourself, you were young – 22, practically a baby, when you got married. He was 32, not that much younger than we are now - and he'd had all this life experience, but when he fell in love with you, he was selfish enough to rob you of the chance to get that for yourself."

"You make it sound like I was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen." She couldn't help laughing, even though that was almost the truth. "I wasn't completely naïve, you know."

"No, just blinded with love," he agreed. "And I get what you mean about Joe being a good guy – he's still a good guy – but I still think it was selfish of him to expect it of you." He looked up and smiled at her, those gorgeous eyes sparkling and those dimples peeking out. "I can't fault him though – I'd probably have done the same if I'd met you back then."

She almost missed the flirty comment, so struck by what he'd said about Joe being 32 when they'd married. She'd been 33 when Lee had picked her out of the crowd that day. She tried to picture him picking a college student that day and expecting help. She couldn't imagine it – heck, Lee didn't even _date_ girls that young. She realized he was looking back at her with a questioning expression and that she'd been staring at him silently for too long.

"I never thought of it that way," she said finally. "I've always just taken the blame."

"Plenty of blame to go around," he said comfortingly. "Is that why you told Carla you wouldn't marry again?"

She stared at him in complete confusion. "I told her what?"

" _Married once, cured forever_ – that's what you told her when we were checking in," he reminded her, trying to hide the way his heart had plummeted, hearing her say it.

"Oh that!" She gave a low chuckle. "No, that's just something one of my divorced friends says all the time and it seemed to fit the cover." _And I was kind of ticked with you for that stupid brother and sister cover._ "I mean, I wouldn't rule it out with the right person - marriage wasn't bad, it was the separation that was the problem."

"Well, you deserved better."

"Lee, I didn't tell you all that to try and get sympathy!"

"I know, but I'm glad you did tell me. And I'm sorry if I made you feel like you had to."

"You didn't – I just needed to. And now I'm glad I did. You made me see it in a new light."

"Well, Charlie Brown, you can pay me my nickel and we'll call it even." The teasing note was back and so was the relaxed Lee she'd spent Thanksgiving with. Suddenly all the lingering chill that she'd thought was from the freezer was gone – they were going to be okay, and for now, okay was good enough.


	3. All Presents Accounted For

She'd slipped up to her bedroom to find the last gift, retrieving it from its hiding place under her bed. Fortunately by the time she'd placed it there last night, it was well past the stage where the boys would have looked for their own gifts there, so she'd known it would be safe.

The box was slim but heavy - _too heavy to be a scarf_ , she smiled quietly to herself. It also looked professionally wrapped and she spared another smile for a man who obviously had no idea how to complete such a simple task.

She carefully unwrapped it, sliding her fingers under the sharp creases of the paper, trying not to tear it. She felt a mix of trepidation and anticipation that had her moving slowly. There'd been a shift in their relationship these last few months and she was almost afraid to see what he'd gotten her; it felt like if it was going to be a tangible reflection of where they stood.

She could hear the boys downstairs, laughing as they got ready to go outside and burn off some energy before Christmas dinner, and more distantly her mother and aunt squabbling amiably about heavens knew what, gravy probably. The sounds of her happy family faded as she lifted the lid and found... a book.

She couldn't help the first reaction, a brief flicker of disappointment, before she took in what it was. It was a book on Claude Monet, with beautiful reproductions of his paintings on exquisitely heavy pages.

 _He'd remembered._

She and Lee had been attending a soiree at the National Gallery of Art only a few months before and he'd found her standing in front of a Monet work, lost in the blues and greens of the Impressionist piece, the way the artist had caught the play of light in the haze of the air and the ripples of the water. She'd been stood there for a long time before she'd realized he'd joined her, and turned to find him studying her profile rather than the art work.

"Welcome back," he'd quipped. "You were a thousand miles away there."

"More like a few thousand," she answered, gesturing to the painting. "I always loved these, and wondered what it would be like to have seen the places he painted."

"The gardens at Giverny look just the same. They've barely changed since he first painted there," offered Lee.

Amanda sighed. "You've been there?" she asked enviously. "What am I saying? Of course you have."

"Well, it was a school trip from the base when we were posted to Germany," he admitted. "I haven't been in almost twenty years."

"Still, you got to go," she said. "My school trips were to Colonial Williamsburg."

"Not quite as romantic," agreed Lee with a grin. "You know, it's funny," he went on. "I would have thought you'd be more of a "Bouquet of Sunflowers" girl." He pointed to the picture across the room. "You and your yellow flowers everywhere."

"Oh!" She was surprised by the rush of pleasure that he'd noticed such a simple thing. "I do like having real flowers around, but that's just a plain vase in a nameless room, you know? But this one –this one is somewhere, a beautiful romantic fantasy _somewhere_ with peaceful water and shade and flowers… And I'm rambling. I'm sorry."

Lee's eyes were twinkling down at her, dimples peeking out in his amusement. "Don't be sorry. I like your rambles."

"Since when?" she asked, laughing back at him.

 _Since always_. "They've grown on me over the years."

"Mmm," she replied, in a tone of slight disbelief as she turned to look at the painting again.

Lee studied her profile, the way her cheeks were flushing delightfully pink as she tried to pretend she was unaware of his surveillance.

"Anyway," he said finally, "It's not a _fantasy somewhere_ – it's a real place, a place you could go."

"On my agency salary?" she asked with a wry expression. "Not likely."

"But maybe someday, right? It's not going anywhere soon. Maybe we'll have to go save the world there some day."

"Yeah, maybe," she'd answered but she knew he was patronizing her a bit. She'd had the occasional trip through the Agency but nothing since that disastrous trip to Munich. Still - she clutched at the thought - he had said "we"...

She let the pages slip between her hands, realizing at the last second that there was something written on the flyleaf and opened the cover to read.

" _Maybe someday? L_." it said in his distinctive handwriting. Not a real signature but then again, she wouldn't have wanted to explain it to her mother.

So now here in front of her was proof that he'd remembered something she liked, proof that he'd made more than his usual effort with her Christmas gift. She lifted her gift from the box and began to laugh softly as she realized she'd spoken too soon. Shaking her head, she pushed aside the tissue paper and as expected, under the book was a carefully folded scarf. She lay the heavy volume aside and lifted the scarf out, her breath catching as it draped like a waterfall over her hands. It wasn't a scarf – it was a shawl, in the softest wool she'd ever felt in her life, and in the most exquisite shades of blue and green that were an almost perfect match for one of Monet's waterlily pictures. A small note card fluttered out onto the bed, and she picked it up recognizing his scrawl again.

" _Until you can get there, the mountain comes to you. Hope this will help keep you warm_."

She felt the tears prick her eyes as she wrapped it around her shoulders and twisted the ends between her fingers. It was so Lee and yet so personal. A quiet laugh puffed out of her at the image of fending off one of Francine's acid-tongued questions after the holidays.

" _What did Lee get me? Oh you know, the usual – a scarf…"_

"That's pretty," said a voice from the doorway making her start slightly.

"Oh! Joe! I didn't hear you come up!"

"Well, you've been gone a while so I thought I;d come check on you." He interrupted her at the beginnings of the worry on her face. "No, your mother hasn't noticed, don't worry." He stepped further into the bedroom, looking around with a fascinated expression as if he'd entered a foreign country. "Love what you've done with the place," he quipped.

She hadn't been able to help laughing, even though it was weird to have Joe back in this room. One of the best things about Joe was how he could always make her laugh.

"You okay?" he was asking now, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed.

Amanda held her breath, gulping nervously as she realized Joe was sitting in the exact same spot where Lee had, that night he'd climbed up the trellis. She looked over to see him looking at her with a concerned expression and realized she hadn't answered.

"I'm fine," she stammered. "Just wanted some quiet for a minute to get my head straight."

"Yeah, it's been a crazy couple of weeks," agreed Joe. "Not even three weeks ago, I was in a sandstorm in Estoccia and now, I'm back here in snowy Washington."

"Yeah, crazy." She stared down at the shawl whose edges she was still gripping. "It's nice to have you back though. The boys are pretty excited you're here."

He gave a soft grunt and she wondered if he'd noticed that she hadn't said she was excited. He reached over and picked up the art book, flipping through it idly while she held her breath.

"Nice," he said finally. "Your favorite."

"Yeah, it is," she agreed. "It's from a friend. At the office."

"Oh," replied Joe neutrally before glancing over at her with a sudden grin. "Lee, I presume?"

She opened her mouth to deny it but she knew that her blush and guilty expression had confirmed it the second he started to laugh. "You figured that out, huh?" she said wryly.

"Not right away, but when it all started to calm down a little, I realized pretty soon you knew each other pretty well."

"Was it that obvious?" she asked, honestly surprised. She thought they'd been so careful.

"Not really, but you seemed really comfortable with letting this Fed into our business so that seemed odd and then later, it occurred to me that when he came looking for us in the library, the first thing he did was call your name."

"Oh." She thought about that for a second, about how worried Lee had sounded in that moment and the look of relief that had gone over his face when they'd appeared from behind the counter. Joe was right – it hadn't been the attitude of someone she'd supposedly just met.

"So how long have you known him?" Joe asked.

"Just over two years," she said. "I got kind of deputized one day when he needed some help and I guess I just never stopped helping."

"Dotty and the boys don't know?" He searched her face for confirmation.

"No, they really think I work for a government film agency. It makes it easier to explain when I have to work crazy hours. They haven't met anyone I work with." _Except for Francine that once_ – she hid a smile at the memory of that crazy conversation.

"Amanda King, G-woman," he laughed softly. "I would not have seen that coming in a million years."

"Neither did Lee," she said with a sudden laugh. "There were a few times in the past few years he regretted getting me involved, but we're pretty good friends now." _And I'm more than halfway in love with him, God help me._ "But I'm not an agent or anything – I'm still just civilian auxiliary but I help out with stuff sometimes." Least said the better, she thought. Joe certainly didn't need to hear the more hair-raising things that had happened in the last few years.

Joe contemplated that thought for a minute before going on with a sigh. "I'd ask if I need to worry but it seems like the only person around here putting Phillip and Jamie in any kind of danger is me - by coming back here."

She didn't respond at first, not sure how to assuage his guilt at having put the boys in harm's way, before deciding that head-on was the best approach. "Joe – those men? I've seen a lot of bad guys in the past two years and trust me – whether you'd stayed in Estoccia or come back here, they would have come after the boys for insurance. The minute you recognized the problem with those aid numbers, the clock was ticking, you just didn't know it."

"I could have kept quiet though. I could have kept my mouth shut and none of this would have happened."

"Joe King! Now you're just talking crazy! Of course you had to say something! You said it yourself, people were starving! And how could you know how far up it went or that they'd come here, after your family?"

"I suppose so," he sighed again, staring down at the book that was still in his lap. "That was when I knew for certain you'd known Lee for way longer. His face when we walked in that gym… I'm just glad he was on our side."

"He's a good man - and that's his job. To look after innocent people, I mean," she replied.

"No, it was more than his job." Joe looked up at her curiously. "You say he's never met Phillip or Jamie, but he looked like he'd have killed that guy with his bare hands."

Amanda looked back down at her own lap. She knew what he meant – Lee had looked almost predatory during that fight. "Well, he knows they're important to me. He doesn't have much family of his own so he likes to hear my stories about them. I guess he feels protective because of that."

"Well, he seems like a pretty good guy," said Joe finally. "And you seem to really be enjoying working with him."

She chose to ignore the question hidden in those last few words. Her emotions had been so jumbled up the last few weeks and the last thing she could contemplate right now was having _that_ conversation - and with Joe, of all people. "I really do," she nodded. "Working for the Agency makes me feel like I'm making a difference, you know?"

Joe surveyed her for a moment, noting not just the way she'd rephrased what he said but also the bloom in her cheek, the sparkle in her eye that had been missing during the last few years of their marriage. If he suspected that Lee Stetson had as much to do with that as the job, he wasn't going to say so. Not yet anyway. He'd asked around casually among his friends and almost all of them had said the same thing: " _Lee Stetson? Yeah, he used to be a real player in the old days but the last couple of years he's been a lot different. We never see him on the party circuit anymore_."

"So did you get him anything?" he asked, gesturing toward the book.

"Oh!" Amanda shifted guiltily. "Yeah, I did. Just an old print – he likes military history stuff and I thought he'd like it."

Joe glanced down at the book and the scarf wrapped around her shoulders and felt his lips twitch. If Amanda had put half the thought into her gift as Stetson had… "I'm sure he will," he said.

He pushed himself off the bed and offered Amanda his hand. "You coming back down? We're reaching my favorite time of the evening when they fight over which one of them was the true sole recipient of Granny Lawson's stuffing recipe."

Amanda couldn't help the gurgle of laughter that bubbled up. She stood up and leaned over to kiss him lightly on the cheek. "I really have missed you, Sweetheart."

 _Not as much as I'd hoped_ thought Joe with resignation.

"I'll be down in a second. I'm just going to put these away before Mother sees them and starts asking questions."

"God forbid," Joe laughed. "Your mother's interrogation techniques always frightened me more than any of my law professors." He headed for the door, speaking over his shoulder as he went. "Take your time; I'll do the forward reconnaissance and distract them by bringing up squabbles of Christmas past."

"Oh lord, please don't!" she giggled at his teasing tone. "I'm hoping for a peaceful Christmas this year!"

Joe simply chuckled as he waved a hand in acknowledgement and vanished down the hallway.

Amanda put the book on the bookshelf and then carefully folded the shawl again, before holding it up to her cheek with a sigh. It really was nice to have Joe home again, and it would be _so_ easy to fall back into the familiar patterns with someone who knew her past, who knew how to make her mother laugh, who loved the boys.

But she didn't _want_ Joe, she _wanted_ Lee. She knew that now – and oh how she wished he felt the same.

 _If wishes were horses, Amanda..._ She could hear her mother's voice clearly in her head.

 _They'd make her sneeze_. That was what her father always used to respond and it had always made her mother giggle.

Her parents had been so happy – they'd never wasted a single moment of the time they'd had together.

Time. Together.

 _It's gonna take some time._

Well, she had time, didn't she? Look how far they'd come in just two years.

She looked down at the shawl, now clutched against her chest, and nodded to herself, decision made. She bent to carefully tuck her gift under her pillow before turning to the door.

 _I've got time for you Lee Stetson, however long it takes_.

* * *

"I'm impressed, Skip. You picked up more from Barney than I thought."

Lee looked across the table at his uncle, off balance by what sounded like a … _compliment_? He shrugged it off – not possible.

Colonel Clayton chuckled a bit, seeing the confusion pass over Lee's face. "You heard me, right, Lee. That was a delicious dinner."

"Um, thanks. And you're right – it was one of Barney's recipes. I never understood how he could make such good food in such mass quantity in those mess halls, but he definitely taught me a thing or two during all the KP duty." Lee stood up and picked up the plates to carry into the kitchen. "And if you liked that, you'll love dessert – Amanda gave us a pie."

The Colonel's eyes brightened with anticipation. "If it's half as good as her cookies, I'm sold."

"Oh, it will be." Lee opened the fridge to pull out the dessert. "I've had to increase my gym visits since we met just to counteract her baking." He put the plate down on the counter and stared at it uncertainly. "Crap. I think I was supposed to warm this up first."

"Well, stick it in the oven for half an hour on low and by the time it's warm, we'll have digested enough dinner to have room for it." His uncle grinned at the look on Lee's face. "What? You think Barney only taught you a thing or two? I've lived alone for the most of the past 15 years; I know how to reheat food!"

Lee gave a low laugh. "I guess that never occurred to me."

"Well, I still tend to eat in the mess hall for now – cooking for one isn't a lot of fun, but retirement's looming so I won't have that to fall back on anymore."

Lee finished setting the oven timer and slipped the pie onto the middle shelf. "Oh yeah, that's right – you only have a little while left. What are you going to do with yourself? Find a porch and a rocking chair somewhere?" The grin he shot at his uncle suggested he knew this was pretty unlikely.

"I'll find somewhere to settle down, I think," answered the colonel. "Haven't decided where yet but a couple of defense contractors have already made overtures about becoming a lobbyist."

There was silence for a moment while that thought made its way through Lee's brain. "Lobbyist, huh? That would bring you to DC a lot more," he said neutrally, as he began pulling out cups for the coffee he'd brewed.

"Don't worry," replied his uncle gruffly. "It won't happen for a while anyway – and I won't be under your feet all the time even if I am here. I know you like your space."

Lee kicked himself and turned to face him. "Uncle Robert, that wasn't meant to sound like I didn't want you here – I'm sorry if it did. You're my only family and that should count for something, right? So how about a Christmas ceasefire, okay" He looked at the older man steadily, hoping he'd see he meant it.

His uncle gave a bark of laughter. "Sounds like Amanda's had more than an effect on your waistline, Skip. Wasn't that long ago you'd barely admit to being related to me."

Lee relaxed and gave him a grin back. "Well, it's not great for a secret agent to have his family splashed across the front page, is it?" laughing a bit at his uncle's pained expression.

"I suppose not," he agreed. He paused before adding, "I don't think I ever told you how grateful I was that you had my back on that. A lot of people who I thought were friends were ready to drop me like a hot potato when that hit the fan."

Lee stared at him, startled. "Did you think I wouldn't? No one in the world had more of a front row seat than I did about how much you cared for the men under your command." _Or how little you cared for me._

He thought for a moment he'd accidentally said that out loud, when his uncle immediately responded with "Well, they were always a damn sight easier to control than you ever were."

"Well, they got paid to obey you, Sir. I had the luxury of not being in your chain of command."

"I'll say. I can't tell you how many times I wished I could have thrown you in the stockade after one of your stunts instead of just putting you over my knee."

"You never once put me over your knee, Sir," Lee shot back. "Although I can't imagine why not, after some of the things I did."

"Oh it was tempting," answered his uncle. "But spanking just makes for angry children and you were angry enough already." He shrugged defensively. "I thought making it clear when I was disappointed in you would work better, but I may have overdone that, hmm?"

Lee didn't answer, but just busied himself putting together a tray for the coffee and gesturing for his uncle to precede him back to the living room.

His uncle wisely decided that his silence was probably best left alone and changed the topic. "Is that present just for decoration?" he asked, gesturing to the package half-hidden under the table top tree Lee had set up in honor of his visit.

"That? Oh, um, no – that's from Amanda," he answered, a twinge of guilt in his voice.

"Any reason you haven't opened it yet?" his uncle asked curiously.

"Not really. I guess I was saving it for later. I don't get a lot of gifts usually."

His uncle watched as he distracted himself with pouring their coffees and making it exactly the way the Colonel liked. "Did you at least get her something?"

"Of course I got her something!" The colonel hid a grin at how quickly Lee's temper had flared up at that jab.

"Not a scarf, I hope?" he couldn't resist asking, stone-faced and watched with delight at the embarrassed flush that went across Lee's face.

"Says the man who once told me, "It's warm, it's just personal enough, one size fits all."

His uncle sighed theatrically. "Yes – when you're buying for the junior officers in your command – not a woman you care about!"

"Well did YOU get her something?" lee asked, choosing not to address the implication his uncle had just made.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I got her a scarf."

"Well then!"

"Yes, but I'm an old fuddy-duddy who shouldn't be buying pretty girls Christmas presents at all. What's your excuse?" When this sally was greeted with silence, his uncle couldn't resist asking. "So what did YOU get her, Skip?"

"A book. And a shawl."

The Colonel dropped his head in his hands. "Skip, Skip, Skip... I never knew until now how badly I'd let you down. A _shawl_? Good God."

"Hey, it was a really nice shawl!" Lee was waving his hands in the air, as if he was trying to sketch it out.

"Well, mine was a really nice scarf." Robert was having a hard time not laughing out loud at Lee's disgusted expression.

"It was from Liberty's in London." Lee was still grumbling defensively. "I got my friend Emily to find it for me."

"Okay, you win then. The scarf was from Woolworth's."

"Are you serious!?"

"Of course I'm not serious! Good God, Skip, I didn't even get her a scarf - I put together a book of some of Barney's recipes that I thought she might like." His uncle sipped his coffee and grinned at him. "But it's always fun to watch you fly at the bait."

Lee stiffened as if he was about to argue before he finally realized that his uncle was laughing at him. "Well, there's nobody in the world who can cast that fly better than you, Sir," he admitted with a self-deprecating laugh.

"You'd think you'd have learned to resist it by now though." Robert rolled his eyes and sighed mockingly. "Where did I go wrong with you?"

Lee handed him his cup and gave a quick grin. "Amanda says you went more right than wrong, if it makes you feel any better."

"It does – and she's right." He sipped the coffee for a moment before pointing at the gift again. "So are you going to open it or not? If mine was anything to go by, she put some thought into it and it's a shame you're not finding out."

"She got you a gift?" Lee asked with astonishment.

"She did," Robert confirmed. Lee waited for him to go on, but his uncle just smiled genially at him. It had been a framed copy of the picture of Lee meeting the President taken at some black tie event; a simple gift, and well within the budget of a working single mother, but Robert had been truly touched by the gesture. He didn't have many photos of his nephew, and this one also served as a reminder of what a good man he'd brought up. "So? You've got a few more minutes until that pie comes out."

Lee glared at his uncle briefly before finally dropping his shoulders in defeat. "Fine," he muttered, and pulled the present out for its spot under the tree. He didn't know it, but his movements slowly unwrapping it mirrored Amanda's almost exactly as she'd opened his. He lifted the lid off the box and carefully pulled back the tissue that surrounded the frame. He stared at it wordlessly for a moment, afraid his voice would give him away if he spoke.

Robert had seen the quickly-hidden reaction go across his face though and got up to come sit beside him on the sofa to look at it. It was a print, one he thought he'd seen before, although he couldn't be sure, of Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee on horseback on the hill above Appomattox. They were shaking hands across the distance between their distinctive steeds, Traveller, General Lee's grey horse standing solidly with his nose outstretched to bump against Cincinnati's, Grant's dark bay whose prancing motion was caught in the way he was slightly rearing.

"Lee and Grant," he murmured to fill the silence. "She knows you're a history buff, I see." Lee just nodded and continued to stare at the print. "Interesting that Grant's horse has two feet off the ground. In a statue, that's supposed to mean the rider dies in battle, but of course, Grant didn't."

"Mine did," said Lee in a harsh tone, immediately wishing he could yank the words back.

His uncle glanced at his profile, then back down at the picture thoughtfully. "Yes, he did. I hadn't thought of that." He contemplated the picture again, wondering just how well Amanda knew his nephew, before clapping Lee's shoulder. "That's a damn good friend you have there, Skip. Don't mess it up. And now, I'm going to go get us some of that pie." He heaved himself to his feet, intent in giving Lee some of that space he'd mentioned earlier.

Lee looked up as his uncle crossed the room. "Have you got that little faith in me?" he asked wryly. "You think I'd do anything that might screw up my friendship with Amanda?"

His uncle paused in the entrance to the kitchen and looked at him thoughtfully. "It's not you doing _something_ that worries me, it's that you might do _nothing_. But actually I'm not too worried – you can't get rid of her that easily. She's way too ornery to leave you alone – and friends like that don't come along every day."

The colonel disappeared from sight then and Lee could hear him moving quietly around the small room, getting out plates and forks, and pulling the pie from the warm oven with a hum of satisfaction.

Lee stared down at the print, amazed all over again at how Amanda had found such a perfect simple gift.

 _Don't leave me alone._

His mind flashed back to their dinner conversation the week before, about the end of her marriage and how she'd silently shouldered all the blame for that, all the while continuing to appear perfectly cheerful and confident. That thought brought another image – her tear-stained face that morning on the run from Sacker's men when it was obvious she'd waited for him to fall asleep before giving into all her pent-up emotions. He'd wondered then how she'd mastered silent crying, and now it was clear it was a long-standing skill, honed in the loneliness of a collapsing relationship. He would take bets even her mother had no idea the toll that had taken on her.

 _Talk about a good agent face_.

 _She's way too ornery to leave you alone._ His uncle was right – Amanda had stubbornly brought him this far in their friendship, kicking and screaming but he knew better than anyone the price she'd paid along the way. She'd still never said a word about Leslie in all these months, and now that he knew how expert she was at hiding her own bad experiences, he wondered if she'd ever feel safe enough to open up to him about that either.

 _She told you about the marriage_ , said the comforting voice in his head.

 _Only because she felt like she had to_ , came the cynical response immediately. _Because you nagged_.

 _No, because she trusted you._

 _Yep, she finally trusted you - right after you made her your sister for a mission cover._

"Goddamn it," he groaned out loud, dropping his head back on the back of the couch _._

"Problem, Skip?" asked his uncle, walking back in with two pie plates in his hand.

"I just hate it when you're right," Lee grumbled, taking the proffered plate.

"That Amanda's ornery?" Robert chuckled.

"No, that I'm almost guaranteed to screw this up." He jabbed his fork into the pie for emphasis.

His uncle stopped dead, fork halfway to his mouth. "No, you won't," he said finally. "You only screw petty things up, never anything important." He put the forkful of pie in his mouth and a look of delight went over his face, as he paused to savor it. "Besides," he went on after swallowing. "You'd never do anything that would make me right."

Lee choked on his own mouthful of pie, trying not to laugh. He glanced down again at the print that was sitting on the couch beside him. Andy would have loved it – the perfectly thoughtful – and perfectly coded - gift.

 _Friends like that don't come along every day._

 _You never screw up anything important._

 _I have the cure for that – it's going to take some time._

 _Well, I've definitely got time for you, Amanda_ , h _owever long this takes._


End file.
